


better with you in my head

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Venom (Comics)
Genre: Breakfast, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: Hybrid heads home after a night on the streets.
Relationships: Hybrid Symbiote & Scott Washington
Kudos: 2





	better with you in my head

**Author's Note:**

> I first heard about these characters on a tumblr I was reading and thought, "Oh, this guy has FOUR symbiotes? And everyone has sadness and trauma? I must read this book!" and tracked down a copy.

There's only so much cleanup they can do in a night, Scott reminds himself, as Hybrid slinks homeward just before sunrise as a shadow in the alleyways. Only so many hours. Can't rid the neighborhood of weapons and bang-boys all at once. They need to sort out who can be scared back towards the straight and narrow, who needs to be left at the precinct doorstep to face the consequences of their killings, who can be chased right out. So many kids. So many bad choices that likely seemed unavoidable at the moment of decision. 

It's heavy, choosing to carry that. His heart aches. He misses Derek.

**Scott,** the combined symbiotes say, four voices in one but not quite in perfect sync. An odd reverberation. 

"Yeah?"

**We are struggling to understand,** they say. The sibilant is drawn out. The words are slow. **Who is good? Who is bad? Why we shatter some guns - not all? Some humans you feel... sadness for? Others only rage.**

That's a lot of words at once, for them, and Scott feels a flash of pride towards them for putting it all together. "I think... if we wanted the official answer, it would take someone much smarter than me to explain - I know you're still working on how humans work at all, much less how we work shit out in a place like this. But I know you see that it's not a good place to live - who wants to have babies in a place where gangs are shooting at each other from their shitty cars? Where teenagers have bigger guns than the cops, and they ain't afraid to use them?"

He thinks about the gun that got pulled on them last night, modified to load armor-piercing shit and pump it out on automatic. "How do you get out from under that, y'know?"

**We do not know.**

"I didn't mean it was a question you had to answer," he says, trying to convey that he's impressed they're trying to understand, that he's impressed they seem to have figured out there's nuance in what they and Scott, as Hybrid, try to do on the nights they can get out on the streets. "It's hard to get it, when you don't grow up here."

They jump over a broken section of sidewalk. The hum-blips flash in his mind, the four of them communicating with each other. They say, **We strive to understand. To understand why Scott changed. Still feel kindness in you, only… buried.**

There's a part of him that does feel bad that he's disappointed these symbiotes, who have known little but pain and fear their entire existence so far. Can he be better, for them? Maybe someday. When he hurts a little less himself. It feels far away, but it feels like it helps to know they still want to be with him.

**You mourn… brother?**

"I do, yeah." 

**We are…** the hum-blips once more, and then a soft sensation, something gentle at the back of his neck. **Sorry for your loss.**

Scott blinks, feeling like his eyes are stinging, even in their Hybrid form. "Thanks, guys." 

They're almost home. This late - or maybe this early - the neighborhood is as close to quiet as it gets. Even the bang-babies are asleep. Hybrid slips into the apartment through Scott's bedroom window, then sinks beneath his skin. He runs a hand over his hair, once he's himself again. "Is it strange, I get so used to being us, that it feels weird for the first few minutes that I'm Scott again?"

**No. We like being us.** They're so earnest about it that he has to stifle a laugh. **Why amusement?**

"I'm not laughing at you," he promises. "I like being us, too."

He swaps out street clothes for sweats, stopping for a huge yawn halfway through. "We don't feel tired all night, but the second we're back here, I feel like introducing my head to the pillow immediately."

**Breakfast.**

"Yeah, you're right. Fuel before sleep."

His mom's already left for her morning shift. Whatever's in the fridge, he'll make extra and leave some for her. There's eggs, which are cheap and they eat a lot of, and the symbiotes seem to like. Some lunchmeat - ham, and one last wrapped slice of cheese. An onion in the bowl; he can use that. "Are you helping today?"

Tendrils extend - mostly red, but he sees a random purple in there, and a green. They tend to not separate much very often. Scott can count on one hand the number of times he's seen flashes of the separate symbiotes, not just the hybrid. They feel safer together, and he understands that, so he never intentionally presses the issue. Someday, he'd like to meet them each individually, but only when they feel safe enough for that.

**Scott thinks too much.** Tendrils start to crack eggs. 

"I do not, you're reading into it."

A vague sort of **hmph** , then the hum-blips of them talking among themselves. A golden-orange tendril joins the egg-cracking. They're good at it - Scott doesn't see any wayward drips. **You are us, and we are you.**

"I know," he reassures them. He finishes slicing the lunchmeat into thin strips, ready to toss in the omelet, and strokes the tendrils quickly for a moment before peeling the loose, crackly outer skin from the onion so it doesn't crumble all over the cutting board. 

The tendrils pause for a moment. **Scott does not touch us often.**

"You don't come out much, when we're like this," he counters.

There's an odd feeling - almost like they're rolling that information back and forth between themselves, trying to formulate a response. Finally, they say, **Not wrong. We like to stay hidden.**

Scott gestures at the empty apartment before picking up his knife again. "Just us here right now."

The hum-blips again, long enough that he gets the onion sliced in half and peeled, and is about to start dicing when more tendrils emerge. From his shoulder, something like a face forms, shifting and swirling in red. "Nice to see you," he says. 

The eye-spots narrow slightly and the tendrils sort of wave in the air a bit. 

Scott smiles. "You gonna beat those eggs, or should I?"

They soften the onion in the biggest frying pan Mama's got, then add eggs, and as Scott waits for the protein to set a bit before adding the ham, the head-shape rests on his shoulder. It should be strange, he thinks, before allowing that so much of his life has been strange the last few weeks. Sometimes he thinks that he went right from a brief flash of fear to acceptance, and somehow bypassed a whole bunch of levels of awkwardness. There are four other consciousnesses in his head, but they feel like they've always been there. 

**Good bond. Strong bond,** the Hybrid says. The blue tendril curls around Scott's wrist. He strokes it gently. **Scott much angrier than when we first met. Still want to be with.**

The blue tendril tightens briefly for a moment, then it's joined by a green one. Scott runs his fingertips over them both, just a soft brush. **Still best host for us,** they add, as Scott drops the cheese and the pieces of ham onto the soft egg, then carefully folds the omelet in half. **Hungry?**

They are hungry, all five of them; Scott can feel it really gnawing in his belly now. "Almost done," he promises. "Gotta save some for Mama, okay?"

The four of them were starving when they first bonded with him. It had hurt, badly. Hybrid had eaten the entire half-loaf of bread that had been in the kitchen barely conscious of what they were doing. **Scott,** the symbiotes moaned in his mind, relief flooding them, their vibrating voices overlapping. Their pleasure at finally having any sort of food was almost strong enough to make Scott shake, or would have, if they weren't Hybrid. It wasn't until later that they explained what they really needed to survive was an assortment of things his human body produced, brain chemicals like adrenaline, stuff like that. Sating their shared hunger with human food made his body produce some of these things, they explained. 

"It's not so bad now, right?" he asks them now. He checks the pan; the cheese has melted, so they can eat. He puts a third of the huge omelet on a plate, covers it with a clean piece of tinfoil, and puts the plate in the fridge. The face-shape at his shoulder watches the process. 

**Not starving anymore,** they confirm.

Scott brings their portion to the worn sofa. The sunrise is just starting to peek through the windows as he begins to eat. After a few bites, the symbiotes all start to purr as one. **Good.**

"Good." He checks the clock. Plenty of hours to sleep before he has to work tonight. The dockyard hired him back, the security supervisor muttering about how the midnight shift was goddamned hard to fill. Now it lets them keep an eye on whatever bad things - guns, drugs - might be coming in off the water. 

The symbiotes nudge at him. **You have stopped eating.**

"Sorry, just thinking." 

**Dock has been quiet lately.**

"Right, which makes me think we're gonna have a night soon where it's not so quiet." He eats another few bites of the eggs.

**Can handle it.**

"No doubt." 

**The eggs are gone now,** they observe.

Scott looks down at the plate, where a few red tendrils are searching for the last couple crumbs. "Yeah. Time for us to hit the sack, then we can maybe stop at the McBurger to see Mama and grab dinner before we head to the dock."

**The crunchy sticks?**

"Fries?" he laughs. "Okay, if that's what you like."

**You like them, so we like them.** Tendrils squeeze his arm gently before he starts to wash up the dishes, then extend to help, holding the frying pan as Scott scrubs it out with a sponge. 

Cleaning up goes quick; they leave everything piled in the plastic drainer, and Scott drinks a glass of water standing over the sink before remembering he should brush his teeth. In the tiny bathroom he feels the symbiotes paying close attention - this is an activity they're always intrigued by. 

"You wanna?" he asks the little face at his shoulder, offering his brush, and laughs when they recoil. "It's just some Colgate."

**Smells funny.**

Scott grins at them in the mirror, then drops the brush back in the old plastic cup. "I won't insist, man. You know better than I do how your alien teeth work."

The small face shows him their sharp teeth. He smiles at them, then lifts a hand, and touches the top of their head-area gently. They push up against his palm. "Yeah, it's okay?"

**Nice.**

Scott thinks again about how he disappointed them at first, when they sought him out looking for kindness and found instead only his sadness and rage. Sometimes he thinks about the Hybrid slinking and hiding all the way from beneath the Adirondacks to Bed-Stuy, so they could be with him again. _Him_ , specifically. Maybe one day he'll feel worthy of their devotion. 

**You are the best host for us,** they say, knowing his thoughts. It's not the second, or third, or even the twentieth time he's turned those circumstances over in his mind, looking for proof he's still good enough for them, even after his rampage of revenge.

He runs his hand over their slick surface a few times, feeling the happiness that radiates through them as they almost nuzzle against his palm. **Together,** they purr. 

"Yes. Come on, let's go to bed."


End file.
